Selected country results

The following tables show aggregate wealth estimates for the 10 wealthiest and poorest countries. Switzerland heads a list in which the top performers are all Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. European countries—two in Scandinavia—dominate the list along with the United States and Japan. The composition of wealth is very consistent across these countries, with the exception of Norway and Japan. Norway’s natural capital, which includes oil and gas resources from the North Sea, accounts for 12 percent of total wealth. Japan stands out for its large share of produced capital—30 percent of the total.

If Europe heads the top-10 list, Sub-Saharan Africa dominates the bottom-10 list. Countries in the table below are characterized by high levels of natural capital— at least 25 percent of the total. Ethiopia has the lowest level of total wealth, combined with a very low share of produced capital. A similar pattern can be observed in Burundi, Niger, Chad, and Madagascar. Nepal is the only country in the table that is not in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Intangible capital appears with a negative sign in some instances, which is an empirical possibility given that it is calculated as a residual—the difference between total wealth and the sum of natural and produced resources.